Pressure Cooker Beef Brisket

This Pressure Cooker Beef Brisket is almost ALL hands-off time, besides a quick sear in the beginning, and comes out of the cooker so tender and flavorful. Did you know that it is possible to make brisket so amazing, you don’t even need a grill? Because I didn’t, but now that I know life shall never be the same.

Pressure Cooker Beef Brisket

If you haven’t jumped on the Instant Pot bandwagon yet, it is seriously time. I was WAY late to the game here, but it has probably been my most used kitchen gadget lately, which is saying a lot. I have all the gadgets, or I’m well on my way to having them all.

Does The Quality Of The Beef Matter?

Start with a high-quality beef brisket. Pressure cookers can do a LOT with meat, but if you start out with a quality cut of prime meat you’re always going to get better results than if you start with a quality cut of select beef.

Along with a quality cut of meat, you’re also going to need a great rub. Jeremiah’s all-purpose BBQ seasoning mix worked wonders on this brisket. Mix up a batch and liberally coat your brisket before searing it.

Once it is seared, dump a large pint-sized bottle of a sweet hard apple cider into the cooker, place the lid on, and set for 80 minutes on manual. I use Crispin’s Honey Crisp with great results, but any hard ciders on the sweeter side will do just fine. I’d stay away from the cinnamon or ginger varieties myself though. (This post is NOT sponsored by them, I just love their cider and it worked great for this brisket!)

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Once the brisket is done cooking, let the pot sit for 10-15 minutes to naturalyl release some of the pressure. Quick release the rest using the vent, wait for the pin to fall, and then check the meat.

Ours was perfect at that time.

Depending on the cut, quality, grade, and marbling of your meat – you may need to go a bit longer. If so, just put the lid back on for another 10 to 15-minute cycle.

Once it is tender, remove it from the cooker and reserve a couple cups of the cooking liquid if you’d like to make your own amazing barbecue sauce with it.

I add a cup of the cooking liquid to this homemade barbecue sauce recipe and then cook it for an extra 10 minutes or so to reduce the liquid a bit and thicken it up a touch. That concentrated beef flavor adds so much to the sauce!

The beauty of this recipe is that even with the homemade rub AND homemade barbecue sauce, your active hands-on cooking time is still well under an hour. I’d say probably closer to 30-40 minutes, actually.

More Instant Pot and pressure cooker recipes coming your way!

Instant Pot Shredded Chicken Tacos
Instant Pot Pork Tenderloin Teriyaki
Instant Pot Shredded Chicken Breasts from Frozen
Instant Pot Pork Ribs
Smothered Shredded Beef Burritos

About 10-20 minutes prepping the rub and searing the beef, and then another 20 minutes making the barbecue sauce. Not bad, right? If you use ready-made versions, your active cooking time goes down to about 10 minutes. SCORE, and WIN.

This should work really well in a slow cooker as well, but you are going to need a looooonnnng cook time to get it tender. Like 8 hours, I would give it. I haven’t tested this in a slow cooker, however, so if you do please let me know how it turns out! I’d love to see!

I love putting fresh coleslaw on my any of my barbecue-sauced sandwiches. So great to add that crunch to the mix.

Pressure Cooker Beef Brisket

Easy Instant Pot Beef Brisket makes tender and delicious brisket in almost no time at all.

4.67 from 3 votes

Print Pin Rate

Course: Instant Pot

Cuisine: American

Keyword: brisket recipe, instant pot, pressure cooker

Prep Time: 15 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour hour 30 minutes minutes

Total Time: 1 hour hour 45 minutes minutes

Servings: 8 servings

Author: Nicole Johnson

Ingredients

• 1 3-4 pound beef brisket
• 3-4 tablespoons canola or vegetable oil
• OWYD Bbq Seasoning Rub or your favorite pre-made bbq rub
• 1 pint sweet hard apple cider
• bbq sauce

Instructions

• Place the oil in the bottom of your Instant Pot and turn pot to Saute. Let oil preheat.
• Season both sides of the meat very well, and place into the hot pot.
• Brown both sides, being careful not to scorch the meat.
• Add in the hard cider, and place lid on pot.
• Run a 60 minute pressure cook cycle, use natural pressure release (just let it naturally fall and release instead of using the valve), and check the tenderness of the meat. If it needs more time, re-close it and run for another 10 minutes of pressure cooking. 
• Once the meat is tender, remove from pot and slice against the grain.
• Serve on toasted rolls with coleslaw on top.

Nutrition

Serving: 1gCalories: 571kcalCarbohydrates: 14gProtein: 49gFat: 34gSaturated Fat: 12gPolyunsaturated Fat: 18gCholesterol: 175mgSodium: 411mgFiber: 1gSugar: 11g